Descendants of Issachar

  

1 Chronicles 7:1-5

 

February 16, 2023

 

Descendants of Issachar

The sons of Issachar: Tola, Puah, Jashub, and Shimron, four.  The sons of Tola: Uzzi, Rephaiah, Jeriel, Jahmai, Ibsam, and Shemuel, heads of their fathers' houses, namely of Tola, mighty warriors of their generations, their number in the days of David being 22,600.  The son of Uzzi: Izrahiah. And the sons of Izrahiah: Michael, Obadiah, Joel, and Isshiah, all five of them were chief men.  And along with them, by their generations, according to their fathers' houses, were units of the army for war, 36,000, for they had many wives and sons.  Their kinsmen belonging to all the clans of Issachar were in all 87,000 mighty warriors, enrolled by genealogy.

From Issachar came men who had many wives and sons, but that was not what made them different, no they were mighty warriors.  So what is a warrior?  The dictionary has this to say: A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracy, class, or caste.

Much of that is true about the descendants of Issachar, but that does not answer the question of why one tribe was known as mighty warriors.  As you and I follow the council of 2 Timothy 2:15, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”  It comes into focus that God had a plan for each of the 12 tribes, as He does for you and me.  In that, our Father is all-knowing and has seen you and I before we were, He knew that His chosen people would be required to be a pure race of people and that their neighbors who worship stick and metal imagines and not the God of Creation, would make them desire a god that they could see.

And my brothers and sisters in Christ that is a message that is still in effect to this day, with you and me.   It is found in 2 Corinthians 6:14-16,

 

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?  What accord has Christ with Belial?  Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?   What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

A yoke is a wooden bar that joins two oxen to each other and to the burden they pull. An “unequally yoked” team has one stronger ox and one weaker, or one taller and one shorter. The weaker or shorter ox would walk more slowly than the taller, stronger one, causing the load to go around in circles. When oxen are unequally yoked, they cannot perform the task set before them. Instead of working together, they are at odds with one another. (Taken from Got question)

We who claim to be Followers of Christ must turn from the little gods, such as money, and titles, and being self-center, to seeking truth, and Jesus is Truth.  God is our king, we are aliens on planet Earth, it is not our home, it is temporary housing.

When it comes to being yoked with unbelievers, we are seeing the result that the divorce rate in the Church is no different than in the non-believing world.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice